ZERO BIAS: A CQ Editorial

Following up last month’s editorial on “Looking Back at a Year of Looking Back,” I think it’s appropriate to start 2021, our 77th year of publication, with a look ahead. This year will be one of new beginnings … a new decade, a new sunspot cycle, new leadership for the FCC with whatever that may portend for amateur radio. As I write this, we’re also on the cusp of having a vaccine for the coronavirus, and the new year will hopefully bring us a return to some semblance of normalcy.

Amateur radio has been a great antidote to the restrictions imposed in many places to help slow the spread of the virus. Social distancing, or what we’ve been calling social DXing, has been a part of ham radio’s fabric since its earliest days, a means of bringing people together even when we’re physically distanced from each other. That was never clearer than in the past year, as clubs expanded on-air nets and meetings and participation records